Predicting Extra-Role Behaviour: Organisational Support And Role Breadth Self-Efficacy As Predictors

Abstract

The main objectives of the study are twofold: first, to examine the predictive effect of perceived organisational support and role breadth self-efficacy on organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards individuals and organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards organisations, and second, to examine the mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy in such relationships. Social Exchange theory and Conservation of Resources theory were used to explain the proposed relationships in the study. To test the hypotheses, PLS-SEM statistical technique was employed to analyze the survey data collected from 353 gazetted police officers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The result showed a positive relationship between perceived organisational support and both dimensions of citizenship behaviour, and a significant mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy in the relationships between the variables. Theoretically, the present study contributes to knowledge by providing support for the importance of role breadth self-efficacy as a mechanism explaining the relationship between perceived support and organisational citizenship behaviour in a single model.

Keywords: Perceived organisational supportrole breadth self-efficacyorganisational citizenship behaviour

Introduction

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is defined as ‘individual behaviour that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organisation’ (Organ 1988: 4). It includes behaviour such as helping co-workers, being involved in extra duties, being on time, and not wasting time with unnecessary activities. OCB contributes to the effective functioning of an organisation, increases organisational productivity leading to organisational effectiveness (Organ 1988), and plays an important role in contributing to organisational sustainability via employees who help to bring changes to the workplace (Vigoda-Gadot & Beeri 2011). Thus, it is not surprising that the construct has long been interest among both practitioners and academics.

Past studies have demonstrated OCB’s contributions towards individual level outcomes such as managerial ratings of employee performance, reward allocation decisions, employee turnover, and absenteeism, and organisational level outcomes which include productivity, efficiency, profitability, customer satisfaction and unit-level turnover (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff & Blume 2009), innovation and process improvement (Shweta & Jha 2009).

In addition to the outcomes, researchers have also been investigating the antecedents of OCB in anticipation that understanding the causes of that behaviour will help us learn how to encourage this particular behaviour in organisations. Four main categories of antecedents are employee attitudes, individual differences, leadership behaviours and situational variables (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Paine & Bachrach, 2000; Podsakoff et al., 2009). Among them all, perceived organisational support (POS) was, however, considered as a more important antecedent variable of OCB (Eisenberger et al., 1990).

Problem Statement

The early notion of OCB was introduced by Organ (1988) as intentional employee behaviour that is discretionary and not rewarded but leads to effective functioning of an organisation. Initially, the behaviour was conceptualized as having two main dimensions namely altruism and generalized compliance (Smith, Organ & Near 1983). It was later expanded to into a five-factor model (Organ, 1988) consists of altruism, courtesy, civic virtue, conscientiousness and sportsmanship. This conceptualization of OCB has been used in many studies with empirical evidence showing that the five-factor model is distinct and vigorous in evaluating OCB (LePine, Erez & Johnson 2002). OCB can also be conceptualized based on the intended target of the behaviour. Williams and Anderson (1991) introduced a two-dimensional conceptualization of the behaviour namely OCB directed towards individuals (OCB-I) and OCB directed towards organisations (OCB-O). This conceptualization of OCB has been well accepted by researchers (Coleman & Borman 2000; LePine et al. 2002). OCB directed towards individuals comprises altruism and courtesy that benefits other individuals and indirectly contribute towards the organisations functioning, whereas OCB directed towards organisations is a combination of sportsmanship, civic virtue and conscientiousness that directly benefits the organisation.

Organizational support is vital in inspiring employees and brings changes in their attitude and behavior. In general, perceived organizational support is a belief that the organization appreciates employees’ contributions as well as cares about their well-being and improves over time through employer and employees relationships (Rhodes & Eisenberger 2002). Basically, care and support given by the organization towards employees creates a responsibility among employees to help the organization to achieve its objectives. In other words, employees’ who feel that they are appreciated and well supported by their organization, tend to perform better and engage well in citizenship behavior compared to those with a lower level of perceived organizational support (Shore & Wayne 1993). This notion is specifically supported by the reciprocity norm (Eisenberger et al. 1986; Gouldner 1960)

Although there have been many studies examining the relationship between perceived support and OCB, the investigation of the process underlying these relationships is still limited (Hsin-Hung 2011). Understanding the underlying process is important to explain the indirect relationship between this two constructs. To date, various organisational-related variables such as trust in supervisor (Chen, Chang & Hu 2007), job satisfaction (Ladebo 2008), person-organisation fit and job tension (Chen & Chiu 2008) and affective commitment (Liu 2009) have been examined as mediators in the relationship between perceived supports and employees’ OCB. However, less is known about the role of proactive cognitive-motivational states such as role breadth self-efficacy in such relationship (Hsin-Hung, 2011). According to Eagly and Chaiken (1993), attitudes and behaviours of individuals are centered on their cognitive processes. Therefore, role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE), which is defined as an individual’s confidence in carrying out a broader and proactive role which goes beyond their prescribed role, is expected to affect individual behaviour such as OCB

The conservation resources theory Hobfoll (1989) suggested that employees with high support from organization (resources gain) will increase their role breadth self-efficacy than employees with low support from organizations. High role breadth self-efficacy, in turn, leads employees to exhibit OCB directed towards individuals and OCB directed towards organizations. Employees’ confidence level in completing broader tasks will be higher when they perceive high support from organizations. Consequently, when employees’ role breadth self-efficacy increases, they are more willing to be involved in OCB directed towards individuals, and OCB directed towards organizations

Research Questions

Does perceived organisational support predict organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards individuals (OCB-I), and organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards organisations (OCB-O)? Does role breadth self-efficacy mediate the relationship between perceived organisational support and OCB-I and OCB-O?

Purpose of the Study

The objectives of the present are twofold. First, to examine the predictive effect of perceived organisational support and role breadth self-efficacy on OCB towards individuals and OCB towards organisations. Second, to examine the mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy in the relationship between perceived organisational support and the two dimensions of organisational citizenship behaviour.

To achieve the objectives of the study, we translate them into hypotheses. These hypotheses were developed based on social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) and conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll 1989) as the underlying theories explaining the relationships between the variables.

Hypothesis 1a: POS is positively related to OCB directed towards individuals.

Hypothesis 1b: POS is positively related to OCB directed towards organisations

Hypothesis 2a: RBSE is positively related to OCB directed towards individuals.

Hypothesis 2b: RBSE is positively related to OCB directed towards organisations.

Hypothesis 3a: RBSE mediates the relationship between POS and OCB directed towards individuals.

Hypothesis 3b: RBSE mediates the relationship between POS and OCB directed towards organisations

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Research Methods

Cross sectional survey design via questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Respondents of this study were police officers in higher position or ranking (gazetted officers) in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. Gazetted police officers were chosen because they are more likely to engage in organisational citizenship behaviour than non-gazetted police officers (Chen & Kao 2011). The questionnaires were distributed in Klang valley, Malaysia because of the concentration of gazetted police officers in the area which accounted for sixty percent of the total gazetted police force in Malaysia.

Each construct in the study is measured using established scales that have been widely used in previous studies. POS was measured with eight items adapted from Eisenberger, Cummings, Armeli and Lynch (1997). RBSE was measured using ten items adapted from Parker (1998). OCB directed towards individuals and OCB directed towards organisations were measured with fourteen items adapted from Williams and Anderson (1991).

Non-probability (convenience) sampling method was used to select the samples from population. A total number of 700 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents during their office hours. Out of the seven hundred questionnaires distributed, only 395 five questionnaires were returned with a response rate of fifty six percent. After deleting the incomplete questionnaires and outliers, 353 questionnaires were used for analyses.

Table 01 shows the demographic profile of the respondents. A majority of the gazetted police officers were male (69%) and Malays (71%). The rank distribution was dominated by superintendents (86%), and 68% of the respondents hold a Bachelor degree. The average age of respondents was 35.6 years (SD= 6.95) and the average years of working experiences that the respondents had with the police was 12.2 years (SD= 7.21).

Findings

The data collected for the present study was analyzed by using partial least square (PLS) method. The Smart PLS Version 2.0 with two-step approach was adopted to analyze the data (Hair et al. 2017; Ringle, Wende & Will 2005). The first step focused on the evaluation of measurement model, and followed by the evaluation of structural model. The direction and significance of path coefficients were evaluated through bootstrap procedure.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the present study provides an understanding on the mechanism linking perceived support to both OCB directed towards individuals and OCB directed towards organisations. It has also suggested social exchange theory (Blau 1964), organisational support theory (Eisenberger et al. 1986) and conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll 1989) to explain the mechanism linking perceived support and OCB. It has made several findings. First, perceived organisational support and role breadth self-efficacy were positively related to both dimensions of OCB. Second, role breadth self-efficacy mediates the relationship between perceived organisational support and the organizational citizenship behaviour.

Theoretically, the present study contributes to knowledge by providing support for the importance of role breadth self-efficacy as a mechanism explaining the relationship between perceived support and organisational citizenship behaviour in a single model. Practically, this study has proposed that the continuous support from the department are essential in determining police officers’ role breadth self-efficacy and their engagement in citizenship behaviour.

This study has some limitations such as the use of self-report, employment of cross-sectional research design and use of convenience sampling method. These limitations can be overcome by using peer-report or supervisor-report, employing longitudinal research design and replication studies. Finally, this study has proposed future research by incorporating organisational climate, individual cultural value orientation, other public service sector (i.e. army officers) and qualitative method on role breadth self-efficacy as they are considered as important parameters in understanding the relationship between perceived support, and OCB directed towards individuals and OCB directed towards organisations.

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